The broadsword's point was in the soil.
The soil was cold.
Someone was saying his name.
Not the designation.
Not sword.
His name.
Lancelot heard it the way he heard everything.
Filed.
Registered.
Placed.
Then, for the first time in his life, the sound did not go where sounds went.
It went somewhere older.
A floor of packed earth, warm from the sun.
He is small.
Small enough that his feet do not quite sit flat when he sits at the edge of the yard.
He has been told to remain there, so he remains there.
At the center of the yard, a woman moves.
His mother.
He does not yet understand what makes her remarkable.
He only understands that people come to watch.
Farmers.
Hunters.
Soldiers from settlements farther away.
Old men who have spent their lives fighting and younger ones who still think they know what strength looks like.
They stand at the stone edge of the yard and watch her the way people watch weather roll over mountains.
She has no Authority.
Nobody does.
